In the real estate market, when a person wants to buy or rent a property, he typically would ask to tour the property first in order to visually experience the layout and furnishing. House tours are often conducted in person, e.g., by the property owner or a real estate agent. During the tour, the visitor gets to see the property and the property owner/agent accompanying the tour will introduce features of the property to the visitor. For example, when the visitor is in the kitchen, features such as size of the room, cabinet and counter space, installed appliances, and lighting conditions may be introduced orally. While property tours are informative to the potential buyer/renter, it is also time consuming and inefficient.
Recently, Virtual Reality (VR) technology has been applied to conduct these tours virtually. Videos, images, and point cloud data of the property are taken in advance. A three-dimensional model is rendered based on the point cloud data and/or the images. As a result, a visitor can remotely view the property without having to do it in person. On the other hand, the property owner/agent may log into the system to introduce the property features in real-time. VR tours thus save both visitor and property owner/agent's time by recreating the in-person experience virtually online.
However, challenges remain in VR tours. In particular, a property typically includes multiple rooms or functional spaces, such as kitchen, living room, dining room, breakfast nook, study, bedrooms, and bathrooms. When the visitor finishes touring the current room and would like to view the next room, conventional VR touring technologies typically transitions the views directly from one room to another room, for example by suddenly switching the images. Such a transition contradicts the user experience in real life, where the visitor would have been ushered into the next room. For example, as he walks through the hallway and doors connecting the rooms, he would have continued to experience the layout of the property, as well as additional property views along the way. All these become lost due to the abrupt transition by the conventional VR touring technologies.
Embodiments of the disclosure improve the existing VR touring systems and methods by navigating a user in a three-dimensional model of a property through a selected route linking a plurality of point positions.